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Abstract

This article contributes to the growing research interest on sustainability-directed citizenship behaviors by helping to develop the construct of organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) toward the environment, defined as voluntary behavior not specified in official job descriptions that, through the combined efforts of individual employees, help to make the organization and/or society more sustainable. Hypotheses predict the extent to which employees’ beliefs about their organization and about sustainability in general will be associated with OCBs toward the environment. The hypotheses are tested via a field survey of 733 employees working in a variety of occupations. Regression results indicated that OCBs toward the environment were related to, yet distinct from, OCBs in general, perceived organizational support (POS), affective commitment (AC), and beliefs that sustainability is important both in general and for one’s current organization. The article concludes with theoretical implications for research on sustainability and extra-role behaviors as well as the practical implications for managers wishing to foster sustainability in their organization.

Keywords

sustainability environment extra-role behavior organizational citizenship behavior perceived organizational support

Reducing the use of nonrenewable resources is of increasing importance for today’s business organizations. Indeed, the popular press is replete with stories of sustainability initiatives launched by organizations. Examples include Mexico’s dedication to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design building certifications (Kaysen, 2007, p. 258), American rental car fleets using an increasing amount of flex-fuel, hybrid, and high-miles-per-gallon vehicles (Henry, 2008), the still-devastated portion of post–Hurricane Katrina New Orleans being rebuilt with solar panels and fuel-cell buses (Burdeau, 2009), the U.S. Patent and Trademark office cutting review times for green technology (Garthwaite, 2009), and Wal-Mart’s dedication to reducing carbon emissions (Pflum & Golodryga, 2007).

As in the popular press, there is a robust academic literature on the business community’s concerns for society and the environment (Carroll, 1999). Schwartz and Carroll (2008) worked toward integrating sustainability and related terms, including corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship, and corporate social performance. The field has been described as a social movement because of the greater accountability, responsibility, and transparency required of organizations (Waddock, 2009). Hundreds of articles have investigated the business case for the correlation between corporate social performance and financial performance (Margolis & Walsh, 2003; Orlitzky, Schmidt, & Rynes, 2003; Peloza, 2009). As a result, researchers report dramatic changes in organizational policies, routines, and actions, including more than 6,500 signatories to the UN Global Compact, the prevalence of the Global Reporting Initiative, and the rise of socially responsible investing, which now represents about 10% of all investments (Waddock & McIntosh, 2009). The advances over the past 15 years contribute to the prediction that organizational focus on sustainability will only grow in importance (Cooperrider & Fry, 2009).

In sum, both the business press and academic scholars have demonstrated that organizations are making significant efforts toward sustainability, defined as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987, p. 8). Particular attention has been paid to organizational sustainability initiatives that are momentous in both scale and scope. However, sustainability endeavors must take place on a number of levels within organizations (Starik & Rands, 1995), ranging from organizational-level policies to the individual-level actions of employees. Firm-level initiatives have received greater research attention; however, individual efforts represent a complementary perspective. For example, recent research has explored how perceptions of firm-level corporate citizenship practices affect employee-level citizenship behaviors (Lin, Lyau, Tsai, Chen, & Chiu, 2010) as well as the impact of perceptions of corporate ethical values on employee ethical behavior (Baker, Hunt, & Andrews, 2006).

While research has examined organization-level factors influencing sustainability (Andersson & Bateman, 2000; Smith & Sharicz, 2011), scholars haven’t sufficiently examined the factors that influence the small, everyday sustainability behaviors that individual employees might choose to perform (for an exception, see Boiral & Paillé, 2012). This perspective is important because individual efforts influence the success of organizations’ overall sustainability endeavors. In the aggregate, even small employee efforts to conserve organizational resources, such as printing double-sided, have a large impact on organizational and environmental resource use.

The present study seeks to contribute to research on sustainability in organizations by investigating the largely neglected role of individual initiative in sustainability behavior. Building on past research that demonstrated that, under certain conditions, individuals will go beyond their in-role behaviors to perform discretionary behaviors on behalf of the organization (e.g., Podsakoff, MacKenzie, Paine, & Bachrach, 2000), this study explores the factors that influence discretionary behaviors by employees aimed at facilitating sustainability within organizations. Specifically, we develop and test the construct of organizational citizenship behavior toward the environment (OCB-E). OCB-E is defined as voluntary behavior not specified in official job descriptions that, through the combined efforts of individual employees, help to make the organization and/or society more sustainable. The study seeks to help establish the OCB-E construct by developing and validating a multi-item scale to measure it and exploring potential antecedent variables. As will be discussed in more detail below, OCB-E is viewed as related to, but distinct from, OCB, voluntary behavior intended to help the organization (e.g., Organ, 1988). Although directed primarily at the environment, OCB-Es indirectly help the organization in potentially many different ways, including reducing costs, enhancing firm reputation, and increasing employee satisfaction, commitment, and/or retention (Boiral, 2009).

This study makes several important contributions to both theory and practice. First, the importance of individual-level factors in predicting employee commitment to sustainability is demonstrated, which provides a valuable complement to existing research on the role of organizational-level factors in promoting sustainability. Second, factors associated with OCB-Es are explored, such as perceived organizational support (POS) and affective commitment (AC), that help explain the theoretical mechanisms underlying OCB-Es. Third, a new context for the study of extra-role behaviors is provided, which can be aimed not just at benefitting organizations but also society as a whole. Fourth, we develop a scale measure of OCB-Es that can be utilized by both scholars and practitioners. Finally, guidance to practicing managers seeking to influence their employees’ efforts to increase sustainability is offered.

Literature Review and Hypotheses

Following is a review of the literatures relevant to OCB-Es. Specifically, research on individual-level sustainability efforts will be reviewed. Next, the OCB-E construct is explicated and differentiated from OCBs in general. Subsequently, the literatures on POS and AC are reviewed to hypothesize what factors are associated with employees’ OCB-Es.

Individual-Level Sustainability Efforts

Sustainability can be looked at as a multilevel construct, including individual, organizational, political-economic, social-cultural, and ecological levels (Starik & Rands, 1995). However, the individual/employee level of analysis has received far less research attention than the other levels (Jenkin, Webster, & McShane, 2011). Within the management and organizational literature, two areas of investigation are particularly relevant: environmental orientation and managerial sustainability behaviors.

Environmental orientation represents the extent to which the organizations’ environmental initiatives have been implemented and institutionalized by both individuals and the organization as a whole (Jenkin, McShane, & Webster, 2011). This effort is composed of environmental attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors of individual employees. However, even in the discussions of these attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors, the majority of attention has focused on the organizational rather than individual level (Jenkin, Webster et al., 2011). We, therefore, still lack an understanding of the motivations underlying environmental orientation.

The organizational studies that specifically focus on the individual level tend to focus on managerial behavior. For example, studies have looked at issue champions (Andersson & Bateman, 2000) and leaders’ personality characteristics, values, and leadership styles (Egri & Herman, 2000) as they relate to sustainability issues. Smith and Sharicz (2011) reviewed sustainability literature and synthesized the seven key elements in developing sustainability: governance, leadership, business plan, measurement accountability, organizational learning, culture, and information systems. This view assumes that organizations can promote sustainability primarily in a top-down manner, whereby leaders transmit their environmental initiatives to employees. Largely absent from the management literature is a focus on how employees can by their own initiatives perform behaviors to make their organizations more sustainable.

The efforts by which individuals attempt to improve sustainability are addressed in the environmental psychology literature; however, this research does not take place in the context of an employing organization. Environmental psychologists have looked at what have been termed by many as proenvironmental behaviors (PEB), although they have also been referred to as “conservation behaviors, environmentally friendly behaviors, environmentally significant behaviors, environmentally sustainable behaviors, and responsible environmental behaviors” (Osbaldiston & Schott, 2012, p. 258). Researchers view individual PEB as being motivated by a mixture of moral and personal norms and by self-interest (Jenkin, Webster et al., 2011). The norm-activation model (Schwartz, 1977) is commonly used in studies that follow the norms perspective, whereas rational choice models like the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) are used by researchers focusing on the self-interest perspective (Bamberg & Möser, 2007; Jenkin, Webster et al., 2011). Cordano and colleagues (Cordano, Welcomer, Scherer, Pradenas, & Parada, 2011) surveyed business students in the United States and Chile to test three theories of PEB: the norm activation theory (Schwartz, 1977), the theory of reasoned action (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975), and the values–beliefs–norms theory (Stern, Dietz, Abel, Guagnano, & Kalof, 1999). They found that all three theories held up, justifying why one model has not dominated in the literature. However, they did find that the norms variable had a consistently high effect across samples.

Bamberg and Möser (2007) replicated a previous meta-analysis (Hines, Hungerford, & Tomera, 1986-1987) finding mean correlations of eight psychosocial determinants of PEB: problem awareness, internal attribution, social norms, feelings of guilt, perceived behavioral control, attitudes, and moral norms. Rather than duplicating the correlation studies, a recent meta-analysis (Osbaldiston & Schott, 2012) examined all cases in which researchers manipulated factors to increase PEB. Treatments found in the literature could be placed in four broad categories: convenience (making it easy and prompting with reminders), information (justification of why to perform a behavior and how to go about doing it), monitoring (providing feedback and rewards), and social-psychological processes (social modeling, attempts to reduce cognitive dissonance, getting an oral or written commitment, and setting goals). Results indicated that the most effective treatments were reducing cognitive dissonance, setting goals, social modeling, and providing reminders. The authors concluded that treatments are context specific, as no one treatment was effective across the various PEBs. They advise practitioners to match the treatment with the intended behavior, paying attention to whether behaviors require minimal or great effort and then match the treatment accordingly (Osbaldiston & Schott, 2012).

The environmental psychology studies can only be helpful in understanding sustainability behavior at work to a certain extent, as their studies have been predominantly focused on consumers and not on organizational employees (Jenkin, Webster et al., 2011). The determinants of PEB within organizations are different, as employees are not only influenced by values, beliefs, and norms but also by contextual factors, such as organizational values and norms (Andersson, Shivarajan, & Blau, 2005; Stern, 2000).

Unfortunately, in studies of organizations, the individual level of focus has received limited attention (Jenkin, Webster et al., 2011). It has been noted (Jenkin, McShane et al., 2011; Jenkin, Webster et al., 2011) that an employee focus within organizations is absolutely essential, given that implementing environmental initiatives in organizations requires employees’ buy-in and motivation to fully engage in the activities. This sentiment was echoed by Scherbaum and colleagues (Scherbaum, Popovich, & Finlinson, 2008), who studied the relationship between environmental world views, environmental norms, and conservation behaviors within the work setting. They noted that studies of energy use are mostly done on the organizational level of analysis and ignore individual-level factors, despite employee involvement being essential to organization-wide implementation. The construct of OCB-E begins to address this gap in the literature by focusing directly on the efforts initiated by individual employees to behave more sustainably at work. Furthermore, unlike these previous efforts, both environmental and organizational attitudes are considered as potential motivators of this behavior.

OCB Toward the Environment

We defined OCB-E as voluntary behavior not specified in official job descriptions that, through the combined efforts of individual employees, helps to make the organization and/or society more sustainable. Several elements of this definition warrant particular attention. First, OCB-Es contribute to sustainability, primarily through reducing personal and organizational resource consumption. OCB-Es differ from sustainability behaviors that individuals perform in general in their daily lives. People who engage in sustainability behaviors perform tasks such as taking action against urban sprawl that threatens a local watershed (Story & Forsyth, 2008), recycling household waste (Tonglet, Phillips, & Read, 2004), or demonstrating a willingness to accept climate change strategies (Nilsson, von Borgstede, & Biel, 2004). These examples paint a generalized picture of behaviors that are largely not required for the daily function of any particular individual but constitute a proactive set of practices that allow society to mitigate human-induced environmental problems in the long run. Similarly, OCB-Es involve voluntary, proactive environmental behaviors individuals perform, but within the context of their organization. These behaviors may include such tasks as recycling papers or cans, using proper electronic waste disposal techniques, and energy conservation (Davis, O’Callaghan, & Knox, 2008). However, unlike efforts taken to promote sustainability in general, OCB-Es are performed at work. Second, these tasks are not required by employers or specified in an employee’s job description and are, therefore, “by definition extra-role behaviors” (Ramus & Montiel, 2005, p. 557). It should be noted that some organizations may have formal policies and procedures mandating sustainable action on the part of employees. Consistent with the definition, these behaviors would not fall under the category of OCB-Es because they are not discretionary. However, the company’s normative culture matters, too. In the event that an organization has formal rules in support of sustainability that all employees ignore, an individual employee’s sustainability behavior might be considered discretionary and fall under the category of OCB-E.

Third, OCB-Es are conducted with the primary purpose to help the environment. Helping the organization may be an additional, incidental benefit. Although sustainability behaviors are generally accepted as predominantly positive for organizations, they are difficult to implement due to the lack of extrinsic rewards for these behaviors. Performing sustainability-oriented actions may be more time consuming and more expensive than not engaging in these behaviors. Therefore, performing OCB-Es may actually make completion of job tasks more difficult, whereas the actions remain unassociated with any direct rewards stemming from a performance evaluation. For example, locating the proper receptacles to recycle paper, plastic, and electronic waste takes time and energy. This is a generally shared theme within the OCB literature; employees may perceive demonstration of OCBs as competing with other job demands and as an individual sacrifice in the short term in exchange for the long-term good of the organization (Joireman, Daniels, George-Falvy, & Kamdar, 2006). However, if the performance of discretionary sustainability-oriented behavior deviates too much from an employee’s job or is completely counter to an organization’s wishes, the behavior would cease being OCB-E and would more closely resemble counterproductive work behavior (Dalal, 2005).

OCB

OCB is defined as “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the effective functioning of the organization” (Organ, 1988, p. 4). Since the implementation of an effort to promote sustainability within an organization is unlikely to be included in the job descriptions of individual employees, unlikely to be recognized by the formal reward system of the organization, and can be characterized as discretionary behavior that positively influences the organization at large, it is reasonable to posit that OCB-Es are conceptually similar to OCBs and, along with OCBs, may fall under the broader construct of extra-role behaviors.

Although OCB-E is likely related to OCB, the two constructs are distinct. OCB-Es are not primarily directed at the organization but rather at the broader environment in which the organization operates. There is a rich literature that talks about two types of OCBs, differentiating OCB-O from OCB-I (Podsakoff et al., 2000; Williams & Anderson, 1991). An OCB-O is an action directed toward the organization, such as working extra hours, whereas an OCB-I is an action directed primarily toward an individual, such as helping a colleague in need. An OCB-I benefits the organization indirectly by having a positive impact on individual employees. Similarly, by performing OCB-Es such as recycling employees aim to have a positive impact on society, which provides an additional route for them to indirectly benefit their company by conserving resources.

Furthermore, scholars have recently begun to consider OCB-E (Boiral & Paillé, 2012; Daily, Bishop, & Govindarajulu, 2009). Boiral (p. 223) defined OCB-E as “individual and discretionary social behaviors that are not explicitly recognized by the formal reward system and that contribute to a more effective environmental management by organizations.” Several insightful theoretical articles have explored how OCBs can have environmental implications (Boiral, 2009; Daily et al., 2009). However, none of these articles have empirically tested the proposed relationships. Boiral (p. 233) notes that future research needs to test whether individual discretionary environmental behaviors should be considered “a special application of general OCBs, or whether it is a question of different constructs.”

One of the objectives of the current study is to clarify this timely and important question and to differentiate OCB-E from OCB. Compared to OCB, the OCB-E construct is rather broad in scope as it has been conceived (Boiral & Paillé, 2012) of being comprised of three categories: eco-initiatives, eco-civic engagement, and eco-helping. Eco-initiatives are employee-driven environmental actions in the workplace, such as recycling, saving water, saving energy, and voluntary initiatives. Eco-civic engagement involves actions such as participation in environmental events organized by the company. Eco-helping involves employees taking the initiative to help colleagues work to become more environmentally friendly. The OCB-E construct presented and tested in this article best corresponds to Boiral and Paillé’s eco-initiatives category. The authors use three items to measure eco-initiatives that are very broad. Respondents are asked whether they weigh the environmental consequences of their actions, whether they voluntarily carry out environmental actions, and whether they make suggestions to colleagues about protecting the environment. Furthermore, there seems to be some conceptual overlap between the scale items in this category and their eco-helping category. Although this scale represents a valuable attempt to measure OCB-Es, the authors do not examine the relationships between OCB-E and other variables. As a result, there is still a lack of understanding of the antecedents and consequences of OCB-E as well as how OCB-Es relate to established measures of OCB.

An important theoretical distinction between OCB and OCB-E is that while improving organizational outcomes may be an indirect benefit of OCB-Es, it is not the only motivation, or the primary motivation, for employees performing these actions. People’s feelings about the importance of sustainability in general will also influence their behavior. Thus, one might characterize OCBs as purely organizationally related, or context-specific endeavors, whereas OCB-Es involve the intersection of one’s feelings about sustainability in general as well as one’s feelings about the organization. For example, consider an individual who has strong positive feelings about protecting the environment. That individual will need little from the organization to engage in OCB-Es, as the behavior will seem very natural. Conversely, an individual who does not believe that recycling, or conservation, is a worthwhile endeavor may need significant positive feelings toward the organization to implement OCB-Es. By contrast, employees’ feelings about sustainability would not be expected to influence their decision to engage in OCBs, which further differentiates OCBs from OCB-Es.

As OCB-Es are another form of extra-role behavior, it is predicted that employees likely to engage in OCBs would also be likely to engage in OCB-Es. Due to the extensive OCB literature developed over the past three decades, relating the two constructs would greatly facilitate the understanding of OCB-E, both in terms of its relationships to other constructs and methods for encouraging the behaviors. Thus, it is first hypothesized that OCB-E and OCB are positively related but distinct concepts.

Hypothesis 1a: OCB will positively relate to OCB-E.

Hypothesis 1b: OCB and OCB-E will be distinct constructs.

Employee Attitudes

Employee attitudes about their organization and how sustainability in general relates to OCB-Es will now be explored. Specifically considered are two attitudes commonly associated with extra-role behaviors—POS and AC. In addition, employee beliefs about the importance of sustainability in general are also examined.

POS represents an individual’s perception of the organization’s willingness to reciprocate hard work with rewards and support in future endeavors. POS is built on the notion that “employees form global beliefs concerning the extent to which the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being” (Eisenberger, Huntington, Hutchinson, & Sowa, 1986, p. 504) and that employees form a “general belief regarding the organization’s commitment to them” (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002, p. 699). More important, when employees feel supported by their organization, they may wish to reciprocate by increasing their effort on behalf of the organization (Brandes, Dharwadkar, & Wheatley, 2004).

Part of an employee’s effort might take the form of extra-role behaviors. There is significant empirical support for POS and its many positive and proactively oriented consequences, including increased safety (Mearns & Reader, 2008), increased job satisfaction, increased performance and decreased withdrawal behavior (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002), as well as decreased turnover intentions (Chew & Wong, 2008). In fact, past empirical studies demonstrate support for the POS–OCB relationship (Eisenberger, Armeli, Rexwinkel, Lynch, & Rhoades, 2001; Shore & Wayne, 1993; Wayne, Shore, & Liden, 1997). Conversely, there is also empirical support that employees who perceive their organization negatively might reciprocate in ways that are harmful to their organization (Gibney, Zagenczyk, & Masters, 2009). Thus, there is significant past empirical support suggesting that POS is an antecedent of discretionary behaviors. These behaviors might include OCB-Es. That is, employees who feel that they are being supported by their organization may wish not only to take steps to help the organization directly, through OCBs, but also indirectly through OCB-Es. By contrast, those who do not feel supported by their organization may not choose the organization as a venue for sustainability-oriented behaviors or may not wish to go above and beyond their job description in any way, including helping the environment. Therefore, POS is expected to relate to OCB-E.

Hypothesis 2: POS will positively relate to OCB-E.

In addition to the direct effect of POS on OCB-E, there may also be an indirect effect through another employee attitude, AC toward the organization. AC is an “emotional attachment to the organization such that the strongly committed individual identifies with, is involved in, and enjoys membership in, the organization” (Allen & Meyer, 1990a, p. 2). Organizational commitment has been accepted as a very useful measure of an individual’s affective attachment to an organization (Allen & Meyer, 1990b) and represents a “force that binds an individual to a course of action” (Meyer & Herscovitch, 2001, p. 301). Research on this topic has grown dramatically over the past 25 years, with close to 200 articles in the 1990s (Mowday, 1998).

Previous research has established the relationship between POS and AC. A meta-analysis of more than 70 studies (Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002) found POS to be a consistent predictor of AC. Furthermore, evidence supports AC as a predictor of OCB (Liden, Wayne, Kraimer, & Sparrowe, 2003; Shore & Wayne, 1993; Van Dyne & Ang, 1998) and a mediator of the relationship between POS and a variety of behaviors (Hutchinson, 1997; Rhoades, Eisenberger, & Armeli, 2001). The mediated relationship (POS–AC–OCB) has been theoretically proposed (Piercy, Cravens, Lane, & Vorhies, 2006) and empirically supported (Liu, 2008). Thus, it appears that AC is one mechanism through which POS affects extra-role behaviors. In addition, Daily and colleagues (2009) proposed a relationship whereby AC relates to OCB-E because employees who are attached to their organization will want to put forth effort to achieve goals valued by the organization. An important boundary condition to this relationship is organizations that do not value environmental efforts. However, for firms in general, AC should mediate the relationship between POS and OCB-E.

Hypothesis 3: AC will mediate the relationship between POS and OCB-E.

Up to this point, the relationship between employee attitudes about their organization and OCB-Es has been examined. Now the role of employees’ specific attitudes about sustainability will be considered. One factor determining whether employees will behave sustainably at work is the extent to which they value sustainability in general (Rands, 1993; Starik & Rands, 1995). Employees who in both their private and work lives believe sustainability issues are important should be more likely to behave sustainably (Daily et al., 2009). Boiral (2009, p. 228) summarized the relevance of people’s sustainability attitudes to their roles in the workplace:

Many environmental gestures outside the workplace are quite similar in principle to those implemented within organizations, such as saving water and energy, recycling residues, buying environmentally friendly products, and using less-polluting modes of transportation. Thus, voluntary environmental behaviors in the workplace could constitute a natural and unconstrained extension of green citizenship independent of required tasks within the organization.

Examining individuals’ disposition toward the environment is far from new, as it has been studied in earnest for more than 30 years. It is the notion that individuals have an environmental worldview irrespective of the environment within which one is operating. Initial progress was made when Dunlap and Van Liere (1978) published the first version of their measure of the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP), amid changing public sentiment toward the environment. In 1990, a revised version was created (Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig, & Jones, 2000), which reflected society’s changing views toward the environment such as whether “society is exempt from ecological constraints” and with the “growing awareness of global problems such as climate change” (Dunlap, 2008, p. 9). Another change involved grounding it in social-psychological theory by framing it as a measure of “primitive beliefs about the relationship between human beings and their environments” (p. 9). As such the NEP has been incorporated into various models in the environmental psychology literature. For example, Stern’s (2000) Values-Beliefs-Norms theory links value theory, norm activation theory, and the NEP.

The fourth and final hypothesis predicts that individuals’ general concern for the environment should be related to OCB-E (Daily et al., 2009). NEP is used as a proxy to gauge respondents’ concern for the environment in general. However, because the focus is on the work setting, the individual’s perception that it is important for his or her organization in particular to be sustainable likely matters as well. It’s expected that employees who believe that sustainability is an important issue both for society at large and for their organization will be more likely to engage in OCB-Es than employees who do not believe sustainability is important.

Hypothesis 4: Sustainability importance will positively relate to OCB-E.

Method

Participants and Procedure

To collect a large sample covering a variety of occupations and organizational contexts, a convenience (snowball) sampling technique was selected. Similar to past studies (Baltes, Zhdanova, & Clark, 2011; Chou & Pearson, 2012; Dries, Pepermans, & De Kerpel, 2008; He & Li, 2011; Lamm & Meeks, 2009), the researchers advertised an online survey through a variety of means, including social media and emails sent to personal acquaintances. Recipients of the survey request were encouraged to forward the survey to their acquaintances to gain access to additional participants. Participants were guaranteed confidentiality and were assured that participation was of minimal personal impact. A URL to an online survey was provided. The first page of the survey included information about the study, including the contact information of the researchers and an informed consent document.

A total of 1,225 respondents completed valid surveys. However, respondents who did not meet the inclusion criteria were eliminated. Participants were required to be at least 18 years of age and to work at least 40 hours per week in an organization. This minimum criterion is important as it assures that these participants could be reasonably expected to have formed job attitudes toward their organizations in response to organizational policy, rules, and structure. Participants who did not meet these requirements were excluded as well as those who did not complete most of the items for the variables included in the analyses. Of the 1,225 collected surveys, 733 (60%) were included in the final analysis.

Gender composition of the sample participants was as follows: 39% male and 61% female. The average age of the participants was 34.91 years (SD = 11.89 years). Thirty-nine percent of respondents were married, and 38% reported having children (range = 1 through 8 children). Fifty-three percent held a college or postgraduate degree. Participants had worked in their job for an average of 6.55 years (SD = 6.62 years) and worked 45 hours per week on average. In addition, 29% of the participants worked for organizations that employed 100 employees or less, 23% for organizations with 101 to 500 employees, 7% for organizations with 501 to 1,000 employees, 13% for organizations with 1,001-5,000 employees, 7% for organizations with 5,001-10,000 employees, and 21% for organizations with 10,000 or more employees. Participants also represented a range of job levels: 46% were nonmanagement, 19% were lower management, 24% were middle management, and 11% were top management.

Measures

All questions from all scales, except where noted, utilized the same 7-point Likert-type scale with the following anchors: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = somewhat disagree, 4 = neither agree nor disagree, 5 = somewhat agree, 6 = agree, and 7 = strongly agree.

OCB toward the environment

Since no previously validated scale measuring OCB-E exists, an original scale was produced. The scale development process, including item generation and reduction, dimensionality, reliability, and convergent and discriminant validity analyses, will be discussed in the Results section. The finalized 12 OCB-E items are provided in an Appendix.

OCB

OCB was measured with O’Brien and Allen’s (2008) scale. The scale was selected because it is an adaptation of Williams and Anderson’s (1991) original scale now made appropriate for self-report responses. The scale includes 14 items of OCB. Sample items include: “I am a person who goes out of my way to help new employees”; “I am a person who takes a personal interest in other employees”; and “I am a person who conserves and protects organizational property.” Coefficient alpha for this 14-item scale was .86.

POS

POS was measured with the short version of Eisenberger and colleagues’ (1986) POS scale. Sample items include: “The organization values my contribution to its well-being”; “If the organization could hire someone to replace me at a lower salary it would do so (reverse-scored)”; and “The organization fails to appreciate any extra effort from me (reverse-scored).” Coefficient alpha for this 15-item scale was .95.

AC

AC was measured with Allen and colleagues’ (Allen & Meyer, 1990a) eight-item scale. Sample items include: “I would be very happy to spend the rest of my career with this organization”; “I enjoy discussing my organization with people outside it”; and “I really feel as if this organization’s problems are my own.” Coefficient alpha was .84.

Sustainability importance

Sustainability importance was measured with two different scales. The first measure captures participants’ general feelings about sustainability, and the second measure focuses on sustainability at work. These items appeared at the end of the survey, after employees’ OCB-Es had been assessed.

For the first measure, the New Ecological Paradigm scale (Dunlap et al., 2000) was used. This scale contains 15 items designed to capture an overall ecological worldview. Sample items include: “Humans are severely abusing the environment”; “The balance of nature is very delicate and easily upset”; and “The so-called ‘ecological crisis’ has been greatly exaggerated (reverse-scored).” The coefficient alpha for this measure was .82.

The second measure of sustainability importance focused on the extent to which participants believed sustainability was important for their organization. As a current measure of these attitudes could not be found, a five-item scale measuring the importance of organizational sustainability was created. Sample items included: “It is important to me that my organization takes steps to implement efforts to be sustainable”; “All things being equal, I would prefer to work at an organization that cares about its impact on the environment”; and “It is not important to me whether my organization is trying to reduce its use of nonrenewable resources (reverse-scored).” Coefficient alpha for the scale was .79.

Convergent and discriminant validity measures

A number of measures were used to establish the convergent and discriminant validity of the OCB-E measure. It was expected that OCB-E would be convergent with other reports of behaviors aimed at promoting sustainability. Specifically, two measures of sustainable behaviors were examined. The first measure was the Proenvironmental Behavior Scale (Milfont & Duckitt, 2010; Schultz & Zelezny, 1998), designed to measure the everyday behaviors people take to protect the environment. It was chosen because several of the items closely resembled OCB-E items. Participants reported how often in the past year they had engaged in each of eight behaviors, from 1 = never to 5 = very often. Sample items include: “Looked for ways to reuse things”; “Recycled cans or bottles”; and “Conserved gasoline by walking or bicycling.” Coefficient alpha for this scale was .82. The second measure was Stern and colleagues’ (1999) scale of environmental citizenship behaviors. This scale contains seven items asking participants to self-report actions they have taken in the previous 12 months to support environmental aims. This scale was selected because the items were different from, yet complementary to, the Proenvironmental Behavior Scale items. Sample items include: “Have you given money to an environmental group in the last 12 months?,” and “Have you signed a petition in support of protecting the environment in the last 12 months?” The response anchors was 1 = yes and 0 = no. Coefficient alpha for this scale was .75.

To establish discriminant validity, constructs believed to be unrelated to OCB-E were included. First, a measure of political beliefs was examined using a three-item political conservatism scale (Pratto, Sidanius, Stallworth, & Malle, 1994). Participants indicated their political views for three categories of issues: foreign policy, economic, and social issues, from 1 = very liberal to 7 = very conservative. Coefficient alpha for this scale was .85. In addition, OCB-Es are not expected to be related to management level or level of education. Management level was measured as 1 = nonmanagement, 2 = lower management, 3 = middle management, and 4 = upper management. Level of education was measured as 1 = not a high school graduate, 2 = high school graduate, 3 = some college, 4 = associate’s degree, 5 = bachelor’s degree, and 6 = postcollege degree (e.g., MBA, Masters, JD, PhD).

Control variables

A number of control variables were also assessed. First, since people’s self-reports of OCB-Es could be prone to social desirability biases, social desirability was measured to rule it out as an alternative explanation for the findings. Following Milfont and Duckitt (2010), 10 items were selected (five of which were reverse-scored) from Paulhus’s (Paulhus & Reid, 1991) Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding Scale. Sample items include: “I never swear,” and “I sometimes tell lies if I have to (reverse-scored).” Coefficient alpha for this scale was .65. Second, since demographics could also influence OCB-Es, a number of potentially confounding factors were controlled, including age, gender, marital status, and number of children. Finally, several variables were assessed relating to the respondent’s job situation, including organizational tenure, number of hours worked per week, and organization size.

Results

The presentation of the results will begin with a psychometric analysis of the OCB-E scale. Next, hypothesis testing of the direct and mediation effects is conducted.

Psychometric Analyses

The psychometric properties of the OCB-E scale were evaluated using the recommended steps for scale development (DeVellis, 2003). First, a pool of 23 items were generated and then reduced based on the psychometric analysis of a pilot test sample. Second, the current sample was used to assess the reduced 12-item OCB-E scale for dimensionality and reliability. Finally, the convergent and discriminant validity of the OCB-E scale was examined.

Item generation and reduction

In generating a pool of OCB-E items, several sources were investigated. First, sustainability content drawn from items used in previous studies (e.g., Davis et al., 2008; Scherbaum et al., 2008) were considered as well as the types of resource-reducing actions frequently mentioned by environmental organizations (e.g., SierraClub, 2007, March 8). Second, previously published OCB scales (O’Brien & Allen, 2008) that measure people’s general tendencies to perform extra-role behaviors rather than actual behavior were examined. Sample items include “I am a person who prints double-sided”; “I am a person who turns off my lights when leaving my office for any reason”; and “I am a person who uses a reusable coffee cup instead of a paper cup.” Participants responded using a 7-point Likert-type scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. In addition, participants were given a “Not Applicable” option to indicate behaviors that they had no opportunity to perform in their workplace.

Initially, 23 OCB-E items were generated and pilot tested to examine factor structure and reliability. The pilot test sample consisted of 1,046 working adults who worked full-time in an office environment and completed an online survey. The authors solicited participants through their personal contacts, and participants were encouraged to send the survey link via email to their acquaintances. The pilot sample comprised 43% male participants, whose average age was 32 years (SD = 11.14 years). Twenty-eight percent of respondents were married, and 27% reported having children (range = 1 through 9 children). Fifty-six percent of the participants worked in nonmanagement category, 17% in lower management, 18% in middle management, and 8% in top management.

An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was performed using principal axis factoring and Promax rotation (Russell, 2002). The results indicated six factors with eigenvalues greater than or equal to 1. However, the eigenvalue approach tends to overestimate the number of factors, so the Scree plot was also examined as recommended by Ferguson and Cox (1993). The Scree plot revealed a single factor, which explained 50.90% of the variance. This factor contained 12 items, which all had factor loadings of 0.40 or higher.

Next, a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed of the 12 items using the EQS software package (Bentler, 1995). A unidimensional model was estimated given the results of the EFA as well as the underlying theory. Fit statistics of 0.90 or higher for the comparative fit index (CFI) and 0.08 or lower for the standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) are ideal (Bentler, 1990). The results of the CFA were mixed. The CFI was 0.76, which indicates poor fit, but the SRMR was 0.07, which indicates good fit. Factor loadings for the 12 items ranged from 0.50 to 0.69, so there were no items that were obvious choices to drop from the scale.

Last, the reliability of the scale was examined. The coefficient alpha for the resulting 12-item scale was .86. DeVellis (2003) characterizes this reliability coefficient as “very good.” Average corrected item-total correlations were also examined, which ranged from .46 to .63. These correlations are sufficiently high to indicate reliability among the 12 items.

Dimensionality

Having used the pilot test to reduce the OCB-E scale to 12 items, the dimensionality of these 12 items on the current study sample was examined. The results of CFA again indicated mixed results. The CFI was 0.76, which indicates poor fit, but the SRMR was 0.08, which indicates good fit. Factor loadings for the 12 items ranged from 0.56 to 0.74, so again single items could not be identified to drop from the scale. Examining the Scree plot of an EFA reveals that a single-factor solution is best, which supports the unidimensionality of the 12-item scale.

Reliability

Coefficient alpha for the OCB-E scale was .88. Average corrected item-total correlations ranged from .51 to .71. Together, these statistics indicate “very good” reliability among the 12 OCB-E items (DeVellis, 2003).

Convergent and discriminant validity

To examine convergent and discriminant validity, respectively, the OCB-E scale was verified to ensure it was positively correlated with similar constructs and uncorrelated with dissimilar constructs. To establish convergent validity, the relationship between OCB-E and other reports of behavior aimed at promoting sustainability were examined. Specifically, PEBs and environmental citizenship behaviors were examined. It was expected that OCB-E would be positively correlated, yet not redundant with, these measures. Therefore, in addition to examining the zero-order correlations between OCB-E and the other two variables, the CFA was used to determine that they are not redundant with one another. Specifically, a comparison was made between a single-factor model where the covariance between OCB-E and the other variables was set to 1.0 with a two-factor model where the covariance was allowed to vary freely. If the single-factor model provides a significant improvement in data fit, then the two constructs are redundant (Anderson & Gerbing, 1988).

To establish discriminant validity, the relationship between OCB-Es and variables believed would not be conceptually related were assessed. Specifically, it was expected that individuals would not be more likely to report OCB-Es based on their overall political beliefs, their position in the managerial hierarchy, or their level of education. To support that OCB-Es are distinct from these variables, the result should confirm an insignificant or very small correlations.

Descriptive statistics, internal consistency reliability coefficients, and zero-order correlations are presented in Table 1. As expected, OCB-E was positively correlated with both PEBs (r = .56, p < .001) and environmental citizenship behaviors (r = .28, p < .001). Next, OCB-E was tested with each of these constructs to ensure that, despite being correlated, they were not redundant. A two-factor model provided a better fit to the data than a single-factor model for both PEBs, Δχ²(1, n = 456) = 377.28, and environmental citizenship behaviors, Δχ²(1, n = 456) = 481.31. Therefore, there is support that OCB-E is correlated with, yet distinct from, other measures of sustainability-oriented behaviors. Also, as expected, OCB-E was not significantly correlated with political conservatism (r = -.07, ns), managerial level (r = .01, ns), or level of education (r = .03, ns). Thus, the results indicated that OCB-E can be discriminated from unrelated measures. These findings together support the construct validity of the OCB-E scale.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics, Coefficient Alphas, and Zero-Order Correlations for Study Variables.

	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
1. Organizational citizenship behavior toward the environment	5.24	1.17	0.88
2. Organizational citizenship behavior	5.67	0.76	0.35***	0.86
3. Perceived organizational support	4.79	1.22	0.11**	0.31***	0.95
4. Affective commitment	4.64	1.16	0.14***	0.36***	0.72***	0.84
5. New ecological paradigm	4.71	0.82	0.25***	0.15***	−0.04	−0.01	0.82
6. Organizational sustainability importance	5.29	1.11	0.46***	0.38***	0.19***	0.24***	0.40***	0.79
7. Proenvironmental behavior	3.66	0.78	0.56***	0.24***	0.08*	0.12***	0.27***	0.48***	0.82
8. Environmental citizenship behavior	0.28	0.27	0.28***	−0.02	0.00	0.01	0.33***	0.30***	0.43***	0.75
9. Political conservatism	3.77	1.33	−0.07	−0.03	0.01	0.05	−0.40***	−0.24***	−0.10**	−0.18***	0.85
10. Managerial level	2.01	1.08	0.01	0.20***	0.23***	0.32***	−0.11**	0.07	0.02	0.03	0.07
(continued)
11. Level of education	4.34	1.19	0.03	−0.03	0.04	0.06	0.04	0.03	0.06	0.08*	−0.07	0.16***
12. Social desirability	4.09	0.82	0.22***	0.31***	0.16***	0.18***	−0.02	0.11**	0.12***	0.05	0.12***	0.08	0.01
13. Age	34.91	11.89	0.03	0.20***	0.02	0.15***	−0.06	0.13***	0.10**	0.07	0.16***	0.20***	0.05	0.31***
14. Gender	0.39	0.49	−0.17***	−0.17***	−0.02	−0.06	−0.07	−0.13***	−0.11**	−0.01	0.05	0.13**	0.03	−0.11**	0.01
15. Marital status	0.61	0.48	0.03	0.15***	0.08*	0.15***	−0.08*	0.05	0.02	−0.03	0.16***	0.14***	−0.03**	0.27***	0.50***	−0.03
16. Number of children	0.79	1.22	0.06	0.15***	0.07	0.17***	−0.13***	0.08*	0.01	−0.08*	0.23***	0.12**	−0.11	0.29***	0.54***	−0.10**	0.59***
17. Organizational tenure	6.55	6.62	0.03	0.13***	0.01	0.17***	0.02	0.07	0.06	0.01	0.14***	0.14***	−0.03	0.23***	0.58***	−0.05	0.34***	0.41***
18. Hours worked per week	44.69	7.51	−0.01	0.13***	0.06	0.12***	−0.07	0.02	−0.03	−0.05	0.04	0.40***	0.07	−0.01	0.07	0.16***	0.03	−0.03	0.02
19. Organization size	3.09	1.92	−0.09*	0.09*	−0.12***	−0.11*	0.02	0.08*	0.01	−0.03	0.04	−0.09*	0.05	0.05	0.06	0.04	0.05	0.01	0.10**	0.04

Notes: OCB = organizational citizenship behavior; OCB-E = organizational citizenship behavior toward the environment; POS = perceived organizational support; AC = affective commitment; NEP = New Environmental Paradigm. Coefficient alphas are all along the diagonal in italics. OCB-E, OCB, POS, AC, NEP, organizational sustainability importance, and social desirability were coded 1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree. Proenvironmental behavior was coded 1 = never to 5 = very often. Environmental citizenship behavior was coded 1 = yes, 0 = no. Political conservatism was coded 1 = very liberal to 7 = very conservative. Managerial level was coded 1 = nonmanagement, 2 = lower management, 3 = middle management, 4 = upper management. Level of education was coded 1 = not a high school graduate, 2 = high school graduate, 3 = some college, 4 = associate’s degree, 5 = bachelor’s degree, 6 = postcollege degree. Age and organizational tenure are in years. Gender was coded 1 = male, 0 = female. Marital status was coded 1 = married, 0 = not married. Organization size was coded 1 = less than 100 employees, 2 = 101-500, 3 = 501-1,000, 4 = 1,001-5,000, 5 = 5,001-10,000, 6 = greater than 10,000.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Hypothesis Testing

Examining the zero-order correlations in Table 1, it can be seen that OCB-E was positively correlated with OCB (r = .35, p < .001), POS (r = .11, p < .01), AC (r = .14, p < .001), NEP (r = .25, p < .001), and organizational sustainability importance (r = .46, p < .001). Hypotheses 1a, 2, 3, and 4 were tested using multiple regression analysis. Initially all control variables were included: social desirability, age, gender, marital status, number of children, organizational tenure, hours worked per week, and organization size. However, only age and gender were significant, so the other control variables were then removed.

Hypothesis 1a predicted that OCB would be positively related to OCB-E. As predicted, the two constructs were significantly related (ß = .31, p < .001). To test Hypothesis 1b that OCB-E and OCB were differentiable constructs, CFA was used to compare the fit of three models using the chi-square difference test. The first model considered OCB-E and OCB distinct but related constructs. The second model considered OCB-E and OCB to be redundant constructs. The third model considered OCB-E to be a subscale of OCB, like OCB-O and OCB-I. If Hypothesis 1b is supported, the first model should best fit the data.

Therefore, first a model was estimated in which OCB and OCB-E loaded on their own factors and were allowed to freely covary. This model provided a good fit to the data (χ² = 1,537.98, df = 298, CFI = 0.76, SRMR = 0.07). Second, a single-factor model was estimated in which the covariance between OCB and OCB-E was fixed to 1.0. This model fit significantly worse, Δχ²(1, n = 448) = 1,254.27. Third, a model was estimated in which the 7 items each for OCB-O and OCB-I and the 12 items for OCB-E all loaded on their respective factors and then these latent subscales loaded on an aggregate OCB factor. This model, too, failed to significantly improve model fit, Δχ²(9, n = 448) = 194.94. Thus, Hypothesis 1b was supported, and OCB-E and OCB appear to be positively related, yet distinct, constructs.

Hypothesis 2 predicted that POS would be positively related to OCB-E. Consistent with this hypothesis, POS was significantly related to OCB-E (ß = .08, p < .05). In Hypothesis 3, AC was predicted to mediate the POS–OCB–E relationship found in Hypothesis 2. To test this mediation, the steps outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986) were followed. First, the independent variable has to relate to the mediator variable. This relationship was established as POS was significantly related to AC (ß = .71, p < .001). Second, the independent variable has to relate to the dependent variable. This relationship was supported, as POS was significantly related to OCB-E (ß = .08, p < .05). Third, the mediator must relate to the dependent variable. This association was established as AC was significantly related to OCB-E (ß = .11, p < .05). Fourth, the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable must be significantly reduced with the presence of the mediating variable. This reduction was established, as the addition of AC to the model rendered the relationship between POS and OCB-E nonsignificant (ß = –.003, ns), suggesting a full mediation. Thus, Hypothesis 3 was supported. Hypothesis 4 predicted that sustainability importance would be positively related to OCB-E. Consistent with this hypothesis, both NEP (ß = .23, p < .001) and organizational sustainability importance (ß = .43, p < .001) were significantly related to OCB-E. The results of the analyses for Hypotheses 1a, 2, 3 and 4 are presented in Table 2.

Table 2

Multiple Regression Results for Hypotheses 1 Through 4.

	Standardized β^a
	Organizational citizenship behavior toward the environment
	Hypothesis 1	Hypothesis 2	Hypothesis 3	Hypothesis 4
Control variables
Age	−0.07*	−0.03	−0.04	−0.01	−0.08*
Gender	−0.10**	−0.15***	−0.15***	−0.13***	−0.10**
Social desirability	0.14***	0.20***	0.20***	0.21***	0.18***
Organization size				−0.10**
Independent variables
Organizational citizenship behavior	0.31***
Perceived organizational support		0.08*	−0.003
Affective commitment			0.11*
New ecological paradigm				0.23***
Organizational sustainability importance					0.43***
F statistic	31.05***	14.37***	12.37***	21.02***	56.97***
Adjusted R²	0.15	0.07	0.06	0.13	0.25

Standard errors ranged from 0.00 to 0.09.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Discussion

In this article, the construct OCB-E was further developed. A 12-item scale as a measure of OCB-E was created and its unidimensionality, reliability, and convergent and discriminant validity were established. The results of this research suggest that OCB-E is related to, but distinct from, OCB. It was found that POS was related to OCB-E and, furthermore, the POS–OCB-E relationship was fully mediated by AC. The results also indicate that OCB-E is related to individuals’ attitudes about the importance of sustainability in general and in particular within their organizations.

This study makes several theoretical contributions. First, the findings relative to employee-level sustainability efforts complement studies that focus on organization-level sustainability efforts. Within this study, environmental impact is viewed not in terms of sweeping organizational policies and incentives but in terms of the small, discretionary actions employees take every day. These efforts constitute a significant environmental and potentially organizational impact (Boiral, 2009). The measure of OCB-Es developed in this study can be used to advance research on individual sustainability efforts at work. Factors associated with OCB-Es, specifically POS, AC, and sustainability importance, were identified.

Second, this article extends a well-established construct in the management literature, extra-role behavior, to begin to identify activities that help the environment in which the organization operates, not just the organization itself. The findings suggest OCB-E is one of the ways employees reciprocate feelings that the organization recognizes and supports their efforts. In the case of OCB-E, employee efforts are directed at helping the organization consume fewer resources (e.g., less paper or electricity) and/or helping the organization indirectly by creating a more sustainable environment.

The results indicate that both employee attitudes about their organization and their attitudes about sustainability in general relate to OCB-Es. These findings represent an initial step at establishing the motivations for OCB-Es. In Cardona and colleagues’ (Cardona, Lawrence, & Bentler, 2004) OCB study, they noted that although there have been theories about the relative importance of situational antecedents of OCB versus dispositional antecedents, there is little empirical evidence. This observation about the absence of empirical research seems equally important for OCB-E. It would greatly assist managers seeking support for sustainable initiatives to know the extent to which employees’ attitudes about the organization may encourage their support for the sustainability policies in addition to their attitudes toward sustainability in general.

The practical implications for these findings are great. Some employees will perform OCB-Es naturally; however, others are more likely to perform these behaviors when they feel their organization supports them. Managers wishing to reduce their organization’s resource consumption should, therefore, consider using their resources to make employees feel that they are being supported.

The finding that OCB-E is indeed distinct from OCB can also be helpful to managers. It underscores the notion that discretionary behavior on the part of their employees can come in many forms. It may be a form of OCB-I, such as helping fellow coworkers, or it may be a form of OCB-E, like reducing paper consumption. A major practical implication from the study was the relationship of POS and AC to OCB-Es. Managers wishing employees to go above and beyond their job responsibilities in a number of ways, including OCB-Es, should make employees feel that they are valued and their efforts are noticed. An additional implication comes from the relationship between OCB-Es and employee beliefs about the importance of sustainability within their organizations. There are often several things that management can do to demonstrate that the organization is concerned about the environment, such as placing well-marked recycling receptacles in convenient areas. The study results indicate that such overt behavior on the part of management could encourage discretionary employee environmental behaviors.

It is recommended that organizations use the OCB-E construct to assess the extent to which employees are taking steps to behave sustainably at work. The 12-item OCB-E measure is meant to be an initial step at identifying the everyday discretionary behaviors employees perform; however, employers could adapt the questions to include items specific to their organizational context. Accordingly, the measure could be used as a tool to assess progress toward sustainability goals. For example, an organization could administer the scale both before and after efforts are made to communicate desired behaviors as a means of assessing the extent to which communication and/or training programs are successful.

Another practical implication stems from the finding that OCB-E is related to, yet distinct from, general environmental attitudes and behaviors. It is recommended that organizations assess constructs like PEB, environmental citizenship behavior, and/or the New Ecological Paradigm. These additional assessments will allow the organization to get a keen sense of how much effort must be employed to motivate employees to be sustainable. This assessment would contribute to the ongoing discussion regarding strong versus weak sustainability (Thomas & Lamm, 2012). If employees in the aggregate measure very strongly and positively for environmental attitudes, organizational leaders could spend less time motivating employees to participate in sustainability initiatives, and more time empowering the employees to be proactive in their own innovative sustainability endeavors. Conversely, weak attitudes toward sustainability in general would indicate that the organization has to take more steps building the attachment between the employees and the organization and making employees feel that their efforts toward sustainability in general are valued by the organization.

Limitations and Future Directions

The intention of this study was to provide an initial exploration of the small, discrete, everyday behaviors employees could take at work to promote a more sustainable and ecologically sound future. As such, there are a number of such behaviors that were not included in this study.

The measures focus only on daily, low-level tasks that an employee at any hierarchical or skill level of an organization could perform. We selected some of the most commonly mentioned environmental actions in the literature; however, there are numerous both specific and more general actions that were not included. More highly innovative sustainable acts that could have a larger effect are not captured, such as an individual asking about the environmental effects of a new product design during a product design meeting. Furthermore, the OCB-E scale is strictly focused on environmental behaviors. Future studies should address a more comprehensive view of sustainability including environmental, economic, and social behaviors.

The data were all self-reported and taken from a single time period. As a result, it was impossible to test causal relationships. Future studies should employ longitudinal data and/or an experimental design to more precisely specify these relationships. In addition, common method variance is a potential problem with single-source data (Podsakoff, Mackenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003). The recommended methodological procedures for preventing bias due to common methods were followed, including separating the survey into separate sections for independent and dependent variables, so that participants would not cognitively group all responses together (Podsakoff et al., 2003). In addition, OCB-Es were assessed prior to asking questions about overall environmental importance so that self-reports of OCB-Es would not be upwardly biased. Finally, the impact of social desirability bias was tested, and it was found that controlling for this variable did not affect the hypothesized relationships.

The chosen sampling methodology could also be subject to certain inherent biases. As a snowball sampling method was used to find respondents, it is possible that friends forwarded the survey to other friends whom they felt would be interested in the topic of sustainability. In an effort to minimize this bias, the survey was called a “Work Attitudes and Behaviors Survey,” excluding any mention of the focus on sustainability in the recruitment email or survey introduction. In addition, using social media for survey distribution could also make the results susceptible to bias as the procedure might have drawn younger, more Internet-savvy respondents. The survey demographics suggest that these biases were not a major issue in the data. The average age of the sample participants was 34.91 (SD = 11.89 years), and 38% of them had children, suggesting diversity with regard to age and family situation. In addition, the participants scored slightly higher than but close to the midpoints for New Ecological Paradigm (M = 4.71, SD = 0.82) and PEBs (M = 3.66, SD = 0.78). Furthermore, their scores indicated that they were very close to the midpoint for political beliefs (M = 3.77, SD = 1.33) and performed on average 28% of PEBs (SD = 0.27). Thus, it appears that participants were not strongly biased toward sustainable attitudes or behaviors, nor were they overly similar to one another.

Since employees were sampled across occupations and organizational contexts, specific company practices, policies, or norms that may promote sustainability (e.g., Starik & Rands, 1995) were not considered. This topic is certainly ripe for future research. Administering a study within one large organization interested in assessing factors influencing degrees of support for the sustainability initiatives would be a great start. In such an environment, researchers would know the context in which the initiatives were launched—for example, processes, goals, relevant leadership behaviors, participants, and so forth—that would allow a consideration of how these factors relate to employees’ performance of OCB-Es. In addition, a boundary condition of the POS–AC–OCB-E relationship was identified to be organizations that do not value, and may outright oppose, environmental conservation. In such environments, top management may construe OCB-Es as counterproductive work behaviors (Dalal, 2005). Future research should explore the antecedents of OCB-Es in organizational contexts where environmental protection is counternormative as well as the career implications for employees who nevertheless engage in OCB-Es.

Another avenue for future research involves investigating employees who work in an organization operating in a context of intense regulations, such as construction or land development. Intuitively, one might predict that there should be a correlation between sustainability-familiarity and OCB-Es. However, for these individuals, although they may be more familiar with sustainability efforts, the constant adherence to regulations as part of their task-related jobs might have reached a tipping point. The result might be that these individuals would be less likely to engage in discretionary behavior for sustainability.

Future studies should collect third-party reports of OCB-Es from coworkers or supervisors. Researchers should also consider the variety of sustainable behaviors employees voluntarily engage in at work, perhaps by doing an in-depth case study of employees within the same organization.

There are likely additional variables that are related to OCB-Es, as determinants and/or consequences that were not included in this study. Future efforts might consider other motivations underlying OCB-Es or the consequences for individual job performance. For example, since advice networks have been shown to influence employees’ OCBs (Zagenczyk, Gibney, Murrell, & Boss, 2008), as well as perceptions of procedural fairness (Pare & Tremblay, 2007), they might affect OCB-Es, as well. Similarly, the model presented could be expanded to include other factors that have been shown to be related to sustainability on both the individual level, such as individual value orientations (Hansla, Gamble, Juliusson, & Garling, 2008), and the firm level, such as organizational environmental orientation (Jenkin, McShane et al., 2011).

Future research could also further the findings related to POS. In the present study, a general POS measure was used, which results in a conservative test of the relationship with OCB-E. An adapted POS measure could be created that asks respondents their perceptions of their organization’s support for sustainability. A sample question could be, “The organization values my efforts toward sustainability.” Such a measure might require the researchers to have an understanding of the policy environment of respondents. Thus, a future study, administered within selected organizational contexts, might be able to accurately differentiate POS from POS for sustainability and then test for the relationship with OCB-Es.

In addition, if the finding that feelings toward the organization influence individuals’ sustainability behaviors holds up in future studies, then it would be interesting to know whether efforts by organizational leaders to increase POS would consequently increase OCB-E. It is expected that any extra resources expended in these efforts will be returned in the form of increased commitment to the organization and subsequent discretionary behaviors, but empirical validation is needed.

Conclusion

With scientists, politicians, and policy makers heralding the call to reduce resource use, it becomes more important than ever to acknowledge the role that organizations and the employees working within them can take to improve sustainability. This study provides an initial attempt to identify the small, voluntary behaviors employees can take to help the environment at work. Individual organizational sustainability behaviors may add up to an important determinant of an organization’s environmental footprint.

Footnotes

Appendix

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Eric Lamm is an Assistant Professor of Management at the College of Business at San Francisco State University. He earned his Ph.D. from the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. His research interests include job attitudes, teams, sustainability, and organizational change and his work has appeared in several journals including Employee Relations, Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, Journal of Business Ethics, and Organizational Development Journal.

Jennifer Tosti-Kharas is an Assistant Professor of Management at the College of Business at San Francisco State University. She received her Ph.D. in Management from the Stern School of Business at New York University. Her research focuses on job loss and unemployment, identity and identification, the meaning of work, and sustainability. Her research has been published in Personnel Psychology, Journal of Career Assessment, and Journal of Managerial Psychology. Jennifer can be contacted at jtosti@sfsu.edu.

Eric G. Williams is a human resources consultant and received his MS in Industrial Psychology from the Department of Psychology at San Francisco State University. His Master’s thesis examined the impact of management on attitudes toward sustainability.

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